


Stars Are Aligned For Me Tonight

by Jiksa



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Face-Fucking, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Smut, Writer!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:08:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't Pete's first rodeo, he knows when he’s being cruised. But it’s too early, he’s too hungover, and this guy looks like the bad kind of trouble.</p><p>For the prompt: <i>"Mikey/Pete, authors AU - Mikey writes best selling horror novels, Pete writes books of critically acclaimed but impenetrable poetry, they meet at a writers' convention."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Are Aligned For Me Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akamine_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan/gifts).



> For Aka's prompt on round 62 of [bandom meme](https://bandom-meme.dreamwidth.org/). bb - I don’t know that you _necessarily_ asked for 11.6k of angst and smut and melodramatic existential crisis, but I hope it works for you anyway. Thanks for the prompt and for being so endlessly lovely.  <3
> 
> Beta by the amazing [immoral_crow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow), who's been patiently listening to me flail about this since September last year.
> 
> Warnings for brief mentions of addiction, past self-harm and past suicidal ideation.

  
_“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”_  
\- Ernest Hemingway, _A Farewell to Arms_  


  
Pete hates these things.

He’s been sipping too-hot coffee in the too-bright foyer of a five-star hotel in Palm Springs for all of three minutes when he caves and texts Ashlee. _why am I here again?_

She responds immediately, as though she’d been expecting him to complain as soon as he turned up. His publisher can't possibly pay her enough to worry as much as she does; he suspects the service is complimentary. _To rub elbows with people of influence and keep the public interested in your work. Please don’t fuck anyone important._

_too late?_

_As if. Bulls played Knicks last night. You drank everything in the minibar and fell asleep on the couch with your pants still on._

He watched the game in a bar across the street. Otherwise, she’s not wrong. _i worry about us sometimes._

_You think I don’t? Put on your name tag._

He wishes again that she was here so he could bitch at her in person, but the baby’s due any day now. She's been trying to smoke the thing out all week with heavy metal, spicy food and sex three times a day. Her wife's a fucking saint for putting up with her. _gabe’s flight’s delayed. it’s a million degrees. i hate everything._

_I know, baby. Put your fucking name tag on and go make nice anyway._

_wish you were here too. <3_

He dumps his name tag in a nearby trash can and looks down at the weekend’s schedule in his hands.

Game face on.

 

—

 

The thing with professional writers is that they’re always somewhere else. Even when they’re listening, it feels like they’re ignoring you, or worse yet, waiting for you to finish talking so they can listen to themselves talk instead. As good as they are at imagining human interaction, most writers he meets are fucking useless at actually having any. Then there’s the inescapable fact that most them are functioning alcoholics, under-medicated depressives, or just jaded, self-absorbed assholes. All in all, he suspects they’re all too much alike each other to ever truly get along.

But Ashlee _insists_ that he show face at a few of these events every year, to make nice, get his picture taken, and keep his name in the press. And like clockwork every year, pictures of his bored face appear on the Internet captioned with: (ltr) _Pete Wentz, author of_ The Pros and Cons of Breathing _, winner of the 2003 Yale Young Poets Award, winner of the 2003 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Poetry, winner of the 2004 Tom Gunn Award from Publishing Triangle, blah blah blah, enjoys a bland cocktail sausage with Up-and-Coming-Writer-That-Pete-Will-Probably-Fuck-Once-and-Never-See-Again._ The fact that he’s published six volumes since _The Pros and Cons of Breathing_ never seems to matter to anyone. It seems the book of melodramatic break-up poems and almost-sent suicide notes he wrote at twenty-two is the only significant contribution he’ll ever make to literature.

Even at his own book launches, all anyone ever wants to talk about is _Pros and Cons_ ; how it gave words to their own heartbreak and alienation and saved them from making bad decisions at a vulnerable moment. Saving lives isn’t bad as far as legacies go—but as a conversation topic, it gets pretty fucking taxing. He tried, in the beginning, to be _present_ with the nervous kids with sweaty hands who thanked him for his work. “I’m just a writer, man,” he’d say, squeezing their bodies tightly in his arms to say _don’t hurt yourself, you’re worth more than that, you’re okay, we’re all okay._ “You saved yourself.”

After a while, it got to be too much. Too repetitive in its content, too intimate of an experience to keep having with complete strangers, too exhausting to be constantly pulled back into in the grief and heartache he’d already outgrown years ago. Their stories started sounding the same. Eventually, he started emotionally checking out when people spoke to him about the book, giving forced smiles and canned answers. He reframed it as good customer service, rather than meaningful human interaction. “I’m just a writer, man,” he says now, with a polite pat to the person’s shoulder. “You saved yourself.”

The program looks like the programs at these things always do. There are the keynote speeches: predictable, optimistic, grand lectures by someone who’s sold more in the first week of a book cycle than Pete will in his entire career. There are the usual in-depth conversations with contemporary writers and the odd Q&As with writers who’ve long since been reduced to nostalgia acts. There are screenings of obscure short films and one-off performances of spoken word poetry. There are the practical writing workshops: writing trauma, pitching screenplays, mastering time management. There are small niche sessions in out-of-the-way rooms that address issues around writing race, gender and sexuality. Travie’s name is down next to a session called _Black and Write: Hip Hop as Poetry, Protest and Politics._ He’ll see Travie speak, if he hasn’t already lost the will to conference by that point.

He’s reluctantly on his way to _The Beautiful Art of Failure: A Talk by Anthony Doerr_ when he spots a stalling mechanism in the form of a men’s room. There are two people inside, a guy at the urinals and another throwing a balled up paper towel into a trash can before he ducks out. The guy at the urinal—tall, wiry, unnecessarily pretty—turns his head when he walks in and looks at Pete for a little longer than what passes for comfortable between strangers in men’s rooms. There’s the slightest arch of a sculpted eyebrow that might have indicated sexual interest in another time and place, that might have even alluded to a blowjob Pete probably wouldn’t have turned down.

Unfortunately they’re _here_ , and Pete recognizes the guy as some New York Times best-selling bad boy who’s been in the press for breaking Taylor Swift’s heart, or crashing a yacht, or getting arrested for something or other in Mexico. He looks like a douche with his slicked back dark hair, try-hard nerdy glasses, expensive leather jacket and made-to-look-vintage Smashing Pumpkins shirt. It’s probably all of the above.

He also looks about Pete’s age or younger, which means he would have been at the tail end of his puberty blues when _The Pros and Cons of Breathing_ came out. After a piss-drunk James Blunt cried on his shoulder in a taxi rank in West Hollywood, Pete’s stopped being surprised about the kinds of people who’ve grown up with his work.

Pete picks a urinal at a safe distance and takes a piss. When he goes to wash his hands, the guy is standing by the paper towel dispenser opposite the sinks. “Pete Wentz,” he says, and Pete tries not to sigh in response. He’s too hungover to talk about this kid’s suicide attempt in a fucking men’s room this early in the morning. “No shit.”

Pete glances at the nametag on the guy’s chest, and a few more things click into place. Mikey Way, author of the famously grotesque _Destroya_ series, which has been titillating bored housewives across America with its heady mix of gratuitous sex and mindless zombie-apocalypse-style slaughter. Pete wouldn’t be surprised if he already has a movie deal in the works. “Hey,” he says politely, meeting his eyes in the mirror as he rinses soap off of his hands. “What’s up?”

Mikey’s mouth twists a little. It looks strange, fond somehow but not quite a smile. “My brother’s a really big fan of your work.”

“Great.” Mikey doesn’t move out of Pete’s way when he reaches for a paper towel, and it further cements Pete’s suspicion that he’s an arrogant, entitled asshole. He reaches around him, irritated. “Always nice to hear. Tell him thanks for me.”

“Yeah, definitely.” The guy extends a hand once Pete’s dried off. “I’m Mikey.”

Pete reluctantly shakes it. It’s a firm handshake, and one that inarguably lasts longer than what’s strictly appropriate. Maybe his initial assessment wasn’t completely off, after all. “Nice to meet you, Mikey.”

Mikey worries his bottom lip with his teeth, nodding. He holds Pete’s gaze, infuriatingly quiet for a few beats like he’s waiting for Pete to say something. “Are you, uh. Are you having a good time?”

“Sure,” Pete says idly, checking the time on his phone to note he’s already late for wherever the hell he was going. It isn't his first rodeo, he knows when he’s being cruised. But it’s too early, he’s too hungover, and this guy looks like the bad kind of trouble. He gets out Mikey’s way. “I’ll see you around.”

His hand’s on the doorknob when Mikey says his name again. Pete’s eyes fall shut and this time he can’t help but sigh. “Yeah?”

“The Skeleton Crew Publishing team’s having drinks at a bar called Vixens two blocks down tonight,” Mikey says to his disinterested back. He clears his throat. “You should come by. I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Sure,” Pete says, stepping back into the blindingly bright hotel hallway. Fuck _Anthony Doerr_ and his _Beautiful Art of Failure_ , he needs more caffeine and something covered in mustard and melted cheese – and to get the hell out of here.

 

—

 

He drains two cups of coffee and picks at a sandwich while he flicks through Hemingway’s _A Farewell to Arms_ on his Kindle. There are about a dozen unread books downloaded on the device, but the thought of starting something new feels too daunting when he’s this exhausted. He’d rather pore over Hemingway’s well-worn words for the hundredth time, meditating on phrases he’s read so often he knows them by heart. He’s always liked the idea that people become stronger at the broken places, rather than just slightly less broken. He’s not sure if he buys it, but it’s nice all the same.

“Um, Pete?”

He startles, looking up to face a young girl with bright red hair and even brighter cheeks. She’s clutching a stack of books to her broad chest. The words _expecto patronum_ are tattooed on the side of her left wrist. “I’m such a huge fan,” she blurts breathlessly, clearly nervous in a way Pete still can’t understand someone feeling about talking to him. “I’m sorry to bother you, I just wanted to—”

“No, it’s cool. Hey.” He reaches out to shake her hand, and it’s predictably damp against his own. There’s more ink on the inside of her arms, delicate black lines etched over faint silver scars. It makes an old ache in his chest flare up. She’s _too young_ to understand that sort of hurt. “You’re not bothering me at all.”

“Oh, good.” She smiles widely, her flushed cheeks dimpling. “I just wanted to say your book... it’s just meant _so much_ to me.”

He forces an answering smile. His _book_ , as though there’s only been one. “That means a lot to hear, thank you.”

“I wish I had it on me for you to sign, but I— um.” She puts her stack of books down on Pete’s table, nearly knocking his coffee cup over. He reaches out to steady it and glances at the titles on the spines of her books. She has good taste. “Would you mind signing my notebook?”

“Sure.” He takes the pen she offers him and waits for her to find an empty page in her Moleskine. From what he can tell as she flicks through the book, she writes like he does: manic scribbles going in every which direction, words sandwiched between dense paragraphs, entire sections angrily crossed out. Patrick used to joke that Pete’s notebooks reminded him of _A Beautiful Mind_ , before he understood that there wasn’t really anything funny about that. “What do you write?”

The crimson in her cheeks darkens. She waves her hands dismissively without meeting his gaze. “Just embarrassing, melodramatic teenage angst stuff, you know, nothing serious. I don’t show anyone.”

It doesn’t sound all that dissimilar to what Pete writes, except by some stroke of luck he gets paid to do it. He scribbles his name on the empty page, then tries unsuccessfully to think of something meaningful to write beside his name. He taps the pen against the paper a few times, leaving three small smudges of ink beside his signature, before handing the book back. “You should show someone.”

“I don’t think so. Um. Thanks.” She picks her other books off of his table and hugs them tightly to her chest again. She shifts a little on her feet. “Can I— I mean. I’m sorry if this is too personal, or. But. Was he under the cork tree when you got there?”

He can’t help but wince. He hates when people ask that question, hates that he ended _Pros and Cons_ on a hopeful note that made it seem like things wouldn’t necessarily end in flames for him and Patrick. Hates that he put so much blunt, decipherable, naked autobiography into the book, that people now think it’s okay to ask him for status updates on his heartbreak. He hasn’t written like that since _Pros and Cons_ ; it ended up costing him too much. Now he writes in ways that critics like to call complex, forceful, evocative, musical, blah blah... but ultimately _impenetrable._

“Nah,” he says off-handedly. “Didn’t show. It’s cool though, we’re friends now.”

It’s not entirely untrue. They’ve fallen in and out each other’s beds too many times over the years to ever truly make it as friends, but they’re civil, at least. They crossed paths at Joe’s wedding in Chicago a few months back, made stilted small talk in the garden while Pete’s date cooed over the tiny baby sleeping against Patrick’s shoulder. He’s happy with Elisa now and little Declan turns one in October. Pete’s happy that he’s happy, even if it’s not with him. The thing about royally fucking up the love of your life, about burning your white picket fence to the ground... is that life just keeps mercilessly going long after the disaster ends.

It’s been years since the last time he had Patrick underneath him, but he will always be devastatingly beautiful to Pete, even with his thinning hair and thickening belly and deepening crow's feet. He’ll always be beautiful in _The Pros and Cons of Breathing,_ frozen in time in stanzas where Pete has him naked, gasping, trussed up in his bed, while Pete wonders desperately whether to live or die. The only epic part of their love story are the parts that Pete wrote down. Mostly, it was painful and irritating and ordinary and confusing, cutting Pete deep in ways that nothing seems to have cut since.

“That’s good,” the girl says, smiling. Some of the color seems to have drained from her cheeks. “Seriously, though. Some poems in that book. I mean. I read _Eleven Reasons to Make it Through the Night_ about twenty times in one sitting. It helped me out of a really rough patch. Saved my life.”

“I’m just a writer,” Pete says stiffly, dropping his eyes to the library books clutched in her arms. _Slaughterhouse-Five, Blood Meridian, No Logo, Destroya: Vol. 1_. His phone beeps in his pocket. He fucking hates this part. “You saved yourself.”

“Maybe,” the girl allows. “I, uh, should go. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he insists, reaching for more coffee and finding the cup disappointingly empty. She’s almost out of the door before he calls, “Hey! Is that Mikey Way book any good?”

“ _So fucking good_ ,” she answers, moving aside to let someone through the door. “It’s like a feminist wet dream, if that’s your thing.”

He smiles tightly at her because, well, it isn't really, and then she’s gone. He lets out a sigh of relief when he notes that the text message is from Gabe, because fuck, finally.

It’s a series of suns, cactuses and various alcohol-themed emojis followed by, _Stop whatever the fuck you’re doing and meet me in reception. Palm Springs, baby!_

 

—

 

The hangover’s mostly gone by the time he and Gabe meet up with Travie and Brendon for drinks down the street from the wretched hotel. Gabe’s excellent company at these things; having him around means Pete’s gone to lectures and workshops he’d otherwise have bailed on. They don’t see each other as much as they used to since Gabe moved back East with Erin, but Gabe will always be the first person he calls when he needs someone to talk to. He’ll always be the first person he sends new work to, much to Ashlee’s ongoing annoyance.

They’ve been something like best friends, brothers and guard dogs to each other for over a decade now, and Gabe loves him like few people in the world ever have: hard, earnest and unrelenting. Much better than Pete deserves. It was a grave miscalculation on both their parts to ever misinterpret that love for lust, but it’s been almost a year since their ill-advised fling ended and they’re mostly past it now. It wasn’t even a bad breakup in the end, just quiet and miserable and ultimately awkward. Gabe sat him down after two-three months of fucking around, said, “This probably wasn’t the best idea after all,” and then didn’t call him for ten days.

Gabe’s seen Pete through a number of short loves and messy breakups over the years, knows first-hand how hard Pete falls and how slowly he picks himself back up again after things end. He’d probably been expecting the patented creative upswing that follows Pete’s usual breakups, but Pete’s been too miserable about the whole thing to say anything about it at all. Ashlee’s been pressuring him to send her new stuff for a while now, but Gabe seems to understand that Pete’s out of things to say.

They knock back shots and doubles until they’re both comfortably buzzed, and then Pete nurses a whiskey as he half-listens to the guys shoot the shit. Travie’s going to put a ring on Bebe’s finger any day now. Brendon and Sarah are buying a house in the suburbs, with a fenced off garden and bedrooms in the plural. Gabe keeps glancing at his phone and smiling like someone’s giving him reason to.

Everyone has someone. Pete has an unimpressed cleaning lady who comes by once a week to frown at the piles of laundry, the single serve meals in the freezer and the empty beer bottles stacked by the sink.

The bar’s crowded now, but Pete’s got his back to the room so he can filter it all out as background noise. It’s day one of this fucking conference and he’s already had enough of being around people. He mostly just wants to go back to the hotel and sleep for days.

Gabe bumps his knee against Pete’s after a while and nods towards the bar. “That cute muscle twink by the bar is totally checking you out,” he says ridiculously. Gabe’s homosexual accomplishments include slipping it to Pete for all of three months and watching half a season of Queer As Folk, and yet he talks about gay shit like he knows what’s up. “You should go talk to him.”

Pete glances blearily over his shoulder, meeting Mikey Way's dark eyes across the room for a few long, awkward beats. He rubs his face when he turns back to the booth, wonders if the bar they're in is called Vixens by some sick twist of fate. He’s too tipsy for this, and he still needs another drink. "Not a chance."

“C’mon,” Gabe teases playfully. “He’s cute. Wait, what does a red bandanna in the right shirt pocket mean?”

“He’s not flagging,” Pete says incredulously, as Gabe ponders aloud about fisting and bloodplay. “It’s not 1975, no one flags anymore.”

“I know him from somewhere,” Travie says, squinting indiscreetly as he tries to place him. “Where do I know him from?”

Pete glares at him, would kick him under the table if they were close enough. “ _Stop staring_. It's Mikey Way, he writes that zombie housewife porn or whatever. He crashed a boat with Justin Bieber or Chris Brown or whoever the fuck, you probably recognize him from his mugshot.”

Travie snorts out a laugh, like any of this is funny. “Shit, yes. You’re right. He seems like a winner.”

“His stuff’s not bad,” Brendon says, then recoils at the looks he gets from the rest of the table. “I’m just saying! Sarah’s been reading it. It’s not… you know, highbrow, or anything, but it’s not bad. It revs the lady’s engine, if you know what I mean."

Gabe snorts, grabbing a handful of peanuts and speaking as he chews. “Does your wife know you refer to her as a motor vehicle?”

“Oh yeah,” Brendon insists. “She’s definitely into it. Sometimes we pretend she’s a towing truck and I’ve been a naughty Ford Fiesta.”

Travie shakes his head, laughing. “I don't know where you go sometimes, B, I swear.”

Brendon opens his mouth to defend himself, before his gaze lifts suddenly to a point behind Pete. Gabe tries and fails to suppress a smirk, taking a sip of beer in a feeble attempt to not be a dick. It makes Pete’s stomach drop. He doesn’t need to turn around to know who’s standing there, but he doesn't really have much of a choice.

Mikey Way is smiling at him like he has any reason to, his hands buried deep into the back pockets of his skin tight jeans. “I didn’t think you’d show,” he says, chewing his bottom lip again. Pete can’t tell if it’s a nervous gesture or some sort of calculated move to draw attention to his mouth. “Um. Can I buy you that drink?”

Pete raises his half-empty glass to indicate he’s well hydrated, and more importantly, not interested. “Buying my own, thanks.”

Travie whistles awkwardly beside him, as though the situation needed sound effects, and Pete watches comprehension dawn slowly on Mikey’s face. He glances quickly between Pete and the three bodies sharing his booth, then his lips thin and he nods once. “Right,” he says shortly. “Sorry to bother you. Have a good night.”

“You’re a fucking dick,” Travie whispers as soon as he’s out of earshot, shaking his head incredulously. “Since when do you turn down hot, willing ass?”

“Since I have standards.” Pete glances over his shoulder to see Mikey returning to his entourage. A short, heavily tattooed guy makes a face at Mikey when he returns. Mikey waves him off, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from their table and heading outside. Pete knocks back his drink in one swallow and coughs when it burns on the way down. “Next round’s on you, Gabe.”

To Gabe’s credit, he doesn’t say anything, but Pete doesn’t need to look at him to know the smirk’s been wiped off his face. He hears him clear his throat and push back his chair. “Sure, buddy,” he says, squeezing Pete’s shoulder once before heading to the bar.

Pete watches the ice cubes melting in his empty glass while Brendon and Travie pick up the conversation where it left off.

 

—

 

He and Gabe stagger drunkenly back to the hotel and pile into a punishingly bright elevator sometime in the a.m. Gabe’s a lush, and Pete always ends up exponentially drunker whenever he tries to keep up with him. He squeezes his eyes shut so he won’t have to see the mess he’s made of himself in the mirrored walls. The world was already wobbly with his eyes open, closing them doesn’t improve things.

Gabe’s voice is soft once the doors close. “When are you gonna start writing again, anyway?”

Pete groans miserably, trying to withstand the sudden vertigo as the elevator pulls into motion. “When I have something to say again.”

“Hmm,” Gabe hums, and there’s a pause where he’s probably looking concerned and earnest in ways that would just confuse Pete if he could open his eyes. “Are you taking your meds?”

“Fuck off, Gabe. I’m uninspired, not depressed.”

It’s a convenient lie, of course. Pete’s been various degrees of depressed for as long as Gabe’s known him, but he’s been on the “functionally so” end of the spectrum for the last few years. He suspects this current slump has less to do with imbalanced brain chemicals and misfiring synapses than the fact that he can never get a warm body to stay in his bed past sunrise. Loneliness is hard on the engine after a while.

He forces his eyes open. “I don’t think I want to write anymore.”

Gabe looks infuriatingly concerned where he’s slouched against the opposite wall. “Look,” he says after a while, biting the inside of his cheek. “Why don’t you crash with me tonight?”

It’s a bad idea, monumentally so. Now that he knows what Gabe feels like deep inside of him _(big)_ and all around him _(safe)_ , and he’s three sheets to the wind and six other kinds of fucked up, there’s no telling how quickly he’ll drop to his knees once that door shuts. “You’re drunk,” he says, just so the record can show that he tried to be an upstanding citizen about this.

“ _You’re_ drunk,” Gabe counters. “I meant to sleep.” Gabe smiles then, a surprising, sweet little quirk of his lips. “I have to tell you something.”

Pete hesitates. He hates the distance that’s between them now, the difference between Gabe as his best friend and Gabe as his ex, hates the three hours’ time difference and the 2462 miles between LA and NY, the memory of coming on Gabe’s face while Gabe worked three long, talented fingers inside of him, the Instagram posts of Erin’s platinum blonde hair fanned out on Gabe’s pillow case across the country, the fact that they can’t undo this mistake they made.

“Just sleep,” Gabe insists. “C’mon. It’s important.”

The elevator stops at Pete’s floor. The doors open and close. “Wasn't thinking anything else,” Pete says petulantly, and Gabe lets him have it. They ride up to Gabe’s room in silence and Gabe hands him a T-shirt to sleep in and a bottle of water from the mini bar once they’re inside. He moves around the room for a few irritatingly noisy minutes. He mercifully doesn’t fuss about Pete brushing his teeth.

“Trashed,” Pete laments once he’s horizontal and able to fully appreciate how violently the room is actually spinning. Gabe settles beside him and rubs the tips of his fingers gently against Pete’s scalp. Pete sighs in wretched, pathetic relief, rolling onto his side to get closer. It’s nice to be touched again, no matter how shitty everything else is. It’s been a while. “So what, are you marrying her or something?”

Gabe looks uncharacteristically serious. “I don’t know yet,” he says, shrugging one shoulder. “She’s pregnant.”

Pete sighs, too exhausted to untangle the mess of feelings in his chest from one another. It hurts more than it probably should, this feeling that Gabe’s moved on and away and has left him behind. “Daddy Gabe.”

“Yeah,” Gabe says, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepening beautifully with it. There’s a joke to be made there about the time Pete called Gabe daddy in bed and Gabe giggled so hard he lost his hard-on, but neither of them make it. “What do you think?”

“I think you should’ve worn a rubber,” Pete half-jokes, but it obviously falls flat by the hurt look that flits across Gabe's face. He rubs his eyes to buy some time. He’s too fucking tired for this. “Fuck, Gabe.”

“C’mon. Tell me what you really think.”

He looks at Gabe for a few slow, confusing moments. Gabe lets him look. “I think you’re going to be the best fucking dad in the world.”

Gabe smile goes off like fireworks and Pete has to look away before it blinds him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Pete hides his face against Gabe’s shoulder. He smells like he’s always smelled, like Pete’s best friend, brother, guard dog. Lacoste Essential, booze, home. “You and her are good together, you’ll make it work.”

Gabe rubs the back of Pete’s neck soothingly, whispering, “Wanna be my best man?”

Pete laughs absurdly against his collarbone. “Having your ex as best man is just tacky.”

“C’mon. You know that’s not what you are to me.” Gabe presses a kiss to Pete’s temple, chaste and familiar and inexplicably soothing. “I miss you.”

Pete tries to swallow around the catch in his throat—words or vomit or something worse. He hopes for the former, but Gabe has him bent over the edge of the bed and over a strategically placed trash can before he even registers he’s going to puke.

Gabe rubs slow, firm circles between his shoulder blades, humming something soothing in Spanish while Pete empties his guts, until all that comes up is bitter green bile.

He slumps back into Gabe’s arms after, letting himself be held and wiped down with a mysteriously appearing hand towel. He sniffles once he’s dry, turning his head to hide against Gabe’s neck again. “I miss you too,” he mutters. “Asshole.”

 

—

 

Gabe’s gone when he wakes up the next morning. There’s a scribbled note saying he’s gone to a seminar on harnessing the potential of social media to boost exposure and engage with your readership (or some such shit, Gabe’s handwriting is utterly appalling). Pete downs the two Advil Gabe’s left for him on the nightstand and chases them with a mouthful of the red Gatorade he finds beside a bag of fresh chocolate croissants. His phone’s been plugged into the charger.

Gabe is a fucking saint.

There’s a text from Ash. _Everything okay?_

_yep :) am at a seminar on harnessing social media to boost exposure and engage with my readership, learning so much and great networking opportunity_

_Oh fuck you, I just talked to Gabe. Get out of bed and do something useful. Write me something I can publish._

He doesn’t know how she does it. Sometimes he casually entertains the notion that he’s in the Truman Show and she’s his showrunner. _yes sir,_ he texts back, before flopping back against the pillows and stuffing a chocolate croissant into his mouth. He fucks around on twitter for a while. He checks his emails. He watches kittens dozing off on YouTube and tries to do the same.

He isn’t necessarily sure how he gets there, but half an hour later he’s watching paparazzi footage of a bottle blond Mikey Way stumbling through the streets of LA, out of his mind on pills or powders while a sharply dressed, cheerful woman from ClevverTV narrates the disaster with more puns than strictly necessary. There’s shaky footage of him brawling outside of a bar in West Hollywood, grainy stills of him snorting something off of a guy’s shoulder in a backalley, footage of him being handcuffed and pushed into the backseat of a cop car. The woman cheerfully lists a series of arrests for DUIs, multiple stints in rehab and rumors of clandestine liaisons with Hollywood’s rich and famous. Mikey Way: bestselling author, paparazzi darling, complete fucking mess. It’s almost endearing.

Another video shows a few blurry pool-side stills from a vacation in Ibiza with Harry Styles of all people. In the first photo, an equally blond Mikey’s rubbing suntan lotion onto Harry’s shoulders, in the next Harry’s leaned close to seemingly nuzzle Mikey’s jaw. A third photo shows Mikey’s hand resting on the back of Harry’s neck. They look nauseatingly happy, until a fourth photo shows them both turned suddenly towards the camera, frowning, having clearly spotted photographers in the distance. A statement issued by a spokesperson for Harry's band formally declares that Mikey and Harry are just friends. It’s followed by an outtake of a radio show where Mikey says, in perfect, controlled deadpan, “I don’t talk about my personal life to the press. Can we please get back to talking about my book?”

Pete reads an excerpt of a recent interview with Rolling Stone where Mikey talks about heartbreak, about hitting rock bottom, about his brother, about being told he should never have woken up from his last blackout. “I get a lot of shit for writing gory horror fiction that girls like,” the article quotes Mikey as saying. “Which is misogynistic bullshit on one hand, but also misses the fucking point. Stephen King said it best, _we make up horrors to help us cope with real ones. Destroya_ isn’t just about a zombie apocalypse. It’s about a sad kid trying to survive in a world that feels violent and hard and incredibly lonely. It’s about learning to grow strong at the broken places.”

When Gabe comes back into the room a few hours later, Pete’s eight chapters into the first book of the _Destroya_ series on his iPhone. There’s half-eaten room service on the floor and the room still stinks of sleep and booze. His heart’s hammering in his chest. He’s barely stopped reading long enough to take a piss. He’s had to rub one out _twice_.

“Dude,” Gabe sighs, dropping his satchel over a chair and kicking off his shoes. “I just got yelled at by a very unimpressed pregnant woman since apparently you’re not picking up your phone. Can you please go to the fucking conference?”

“No,” Pete says simply, glancing at Gabe over the top of the screen. He turned it to airplane mode hours ago. “What’s the point, Gabe? I’m over it. I don’t want to write anymore.”

Gabe flops down on the bed beside him. “Hey,” he says softly, putting the device aside and leaving Pete’s hands irritatingly empty. “It’s getting bad again, huh?”

Pete laughs humorlessly, the sound ringing hollow in his chest. He’s sick of this, of feeling like he’s on constant suicide watch almost a decade after the last time he was actually suicidal. “I’m not depressed,” he says again, folding his useless hands in his lap. “I’m just exhausted. Empty. Numb.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” Pete snaps. “I’m just sick of writing shit people don’t want to read. Fucking people who don’t want to stay the night. Falling for people who don’t feel anything for me in return. I’m over it.”

Gabe rolls onto his back, sighing heavily like he’s bracing himself. Pete can hear the cogs in his head turning. “Listen, Pete—”

“Before you even—This isn’t about you, you narcissist. You were just the last in a long line of people to get inside me before deciding ‘somewhere else’ was a better place to be.”

Gabe doesn’t meet his eyes, but he has the grace to look guilty. They’ve never actually talked about this, about why Gabe randomly fucked him after all those years, why he walked out just as suddenly. Pete suspects it has to do with Gabe wanting to save him from himself, about breaking his back trying to lift Pete’s heavy heart, but he doesn’t want to know for sure. He doesn’t think his pride or their friendship would survive the conversation. He gets that it was well-intentioned pity sex, nothing more and nothing less.

“I don’t want to write anymore,” Pete repeats into the ensuing silence. “I haven’t told Ash yet, but I’m gonna do something else.”

“Like what?”

Pete shrugs, picking lint that isn’t there off of the shoulder of the shirt Gabe lent him last night. “Those who can’t ‘do’ teach, right? Maybe I’ll teach _Critically Acclaimed but Impenetrable Poetry 101_ at a community college.”

Pete isn’t expecting Gabe to laugh, but it mercifully soothes something in his chest. “Smartass,” Gabe admonishes. “Come crash with me for a little while. Get out of LA.”

“LA’s not the problem,” Pete argues. “I wish it was that easy.”

“Maybe not, but if you’re stuck where you are, maybe going somewhere else might help.”

Pete sighs. “So what, I just follow you? I’m sure Erin would love that.”

“We have a spare room. She’s cool.”

Pete scoffs. “You mean a nursery.”

Gabe grins, wide and fearless and so very fucking _Gabe_. “I mean a place you can crash for a little while. I miss you. Shit’s about to get really fucking adult and serious in my life, it would be nice to have my best friend around. And maybe a change of pace will do you good.”

“Maybe,” Pete says, giving the thought a few moments to sink in. A time out. Cold weather. Public transport. New people. Basement shows. Better pizza. “Ash would kill me.”

“Nah. She knows you’ve been having a hard time. I talked to her earlier, she just wants you to be happy.”

Pete nods. For all their bitchy banter, he does know that about her. He’ll never understand why the people in his life love him the way they do. He’s never done anything to deserve it. “So, I’ve been reading that Mikey Way book.”

“No shit,” Gabe says, narrowing his eyes in surprise. “That guy from last night? How is it?”

“It’s…” Pete swallows dryly around a mouthful of things he doesn’t have words for. It’s beautiful. It’s courageous. It’s devastating. It’s... “It hits really close to home in a lot of ways.”

It’s a small mercy that Gabe doesn’t ask him to elaborate any further. He’s always known when to push and when to let things go. “Hm,” he says instead. “Yeah, I hear it’s pretty kinky.”

“Shut up.” Pete punches him in the shoulder. The fact that Gabe knows what he gets off on in great technicolor detail is a thing he has filed far, far back in his mind. “I was a dick to him, wasn’t I?”

“Oh, a _total_ fucking dick.”

“I think I should apologize.”

“Eh, he might be at the Thing tonight.” Gabe says casually, as though Pete’s actually bothered to take any notice of what’s on this weekend. “But you won’t know unless you take a shower and get out of my hotel room. You stink.”

 

—

 

They have dinner with some acquaintances of Travie’s whose names Pete doesn’t bother to remember, and by the time they get to the Thing, they’re tipsy and loud and he’s almost forgotten that he doesn’t want to be here. He tries to talk Gabe into calling his kid Pete Junior. He sends a selfie of himself and Brendon to Ash, captioned, _wish you were here baby!_ He has a few tequila shots with Clementine von Radics. They don’t talk about poetry. It’s nice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Mikey approaching the other end of the bar as he’s downing his last shot of Jose Cuervo. He chases the shot with a swig of beer and gives gives Clem quick a kiss on the cheek, promising to catch her spoken word performance in the morning. He makes his way across the bar before he loses his nerve.

It’s about 80% Dutch courage when he leans in close to say, “It’s been brought to my attention that I may have been a bit rude last night.”

Mikey glances briefly at him, looking thoroughly unsurprised by his appearance. “Don’t worry about it,” he says dismissively, digging through his wallet for cash. Pete beats him to it, handing the bartender a bill and waving for him to keep the change. Mikey’s lips thin at the gesture. “Can I help you with something?”

“Just wanted to buy you a drink.”

“Great.” Mikey raises his glass. “Mission accomplished.”

He moves to leave; Pete touches his arm to stop him. Mikey jerks it back, looking unmistakably pissed off. “I’m sorry,” Pete says emphatically, searching his eyes for any sort of mercy. “I was a dick.”

Mikey’s lips purse. “You’re still being one, in case that isn’t clear to you.”

“I read your book,” Pete blurts, at a loss for any other way to redeem himself. “I mean, I’m halfway through the first one. It’s good.”

Mikey’s face softens a fraction. His stance noticeably relaxes, though he still looks wary. “Okay?”

“Um. Yeah. So uh. I wanted to apologize.”

Mikey glances back at what Pete assumes are his friends or other authors who write for Skeleton Crew Publishing. The tattooed guy Pete saw him with yesterday is talking animatedly to a guy with an impressive head of curls, entirely oblivious that Mikey’s seeking backup. “Sure,” Mikey says, sounding more resigned than strictly forgiving. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“My heart’s still in my throat,” Pete continues, all relief and tequila and the need to not fuck this up again. “I’ve just gotten to the part where the Camaro’s run out of fuel and Lacey has to decide whether to shoot herself or keep fighting. She’s so fucking strong, I don’t even understand how you can write someone like that.”

“Oh,” Mikey says, rubbing the back of his neck in a painfully nervous gesture before cautiously meeting Pete’s gaze again. “Thanks, that means a lot.”

Mikey looks so earnest in his gratitude that Pete can’t help but believe him. It makes something in him ache; he can barely remember the last time he let himself be that open to someone’s evaluation of him or his work. He watches Mikey drain his glass and wipe his mouth, like he’s fixing some Dutch courage of his own.

Pete feels a reckless compulsion to get them both drunker, to get underneath him, to let him inside and swallow him up and keep him there. He waves a hand, trying to flag a bartender. “What’s your poison?”

“Uh,” Mikey says, brow furrowing minutely. “Just lemonade.”

Pete laughs a little, unsure of how to interpret Mikey’s less than expressive expression. “Straight edge?”

Mikey mouth twists. “Addict. Six months clean.”

Pete lowers his near-empty bottle and swallows thickly. His beer tastes cheap and sour going down. Fuck, he should have realized. “Now I feel like an asshole.”

Mikey shrugs one shoulder, shakes his head; somehow neither look quite casual. “Don’t,” he murmurs, giving a discreet nod in the direction of his friends. Pete doesn't turn to check, but he assumes they've finally thought to check in on him. “It doesn’t bother me if you drink. Free country. I am in a bar, after all.”

Fuck. Pete wonders if there’s anywhere he could buy mints. “Do you want to…. Uh, you smoke, right?”

Up close like this, Pete can see how worn-in and threadbare Mikey’s Anthrax shirt is, how his glasses are clearly prescription, how uneven his teeth are when they bite down on his dry lips. “Yeah,” Mikey says. “I smoke.”

 

— 

 

The elevator ride can’t possibly take as long as it feels, but… Mikey pushes the button for the twenty-fourth floor and then takes a step forward into Pete’s personal space, making time grind to a sudden, startling halt. The sudden proximity knocks Pete off balance and for a split second he doesn’t know whether to hold on to Mikey or to back up against the wall. He chooses the latter, the impact against his back knocking the air out of his lungs.

Mikey smirks, an almost predatory baring of teeth. “I don’t bottom.” He takes another small step until he’s flush against Pete, and then his hands close around Pete’s wrists and raise them gently over his head. His breath smells like cigarettes and artificial lemons. “It’s not a masculinity thing, I just can’t stand it.”

Pete’s breath falters in response, and he tries to keep his hips still, tries not to strain against Mikey’s hold or grind up against him like a bitch in heat. “I volunteer as tribute.”

Mikey scrapes his teeth against the sensitive skin of Pete’s throat like a promise or a... threat. “Then may the odds be _ever_ in your favor.”

Pete whimpers when Mikey bites his adam’s apple, and whines, graceless and impatient, until Mikey’s licked and sucked and bitten his way up to Pete’s mouth, and when Mikey’s tongue finds his own, wet and insistent and demanding, any sense of control he may have felt vanishes into thin air.

He grinds up against Mikey, pressing himself against Mikey’s bony hips, straining shamelessly against his hands. He’d let Mikey take him right here, in this brightly lit CCTV-fitted mirrored nightmare of an elevator, if only it meant Mikey would keep holding on to him, keep kissing him, keep swallowing his moans.

The elevator ride stops days before Pete wants it to, crushing Mikey against him with the force of it. He follows Mikey down a hallway and into a dark, spacious suite that looks significantly pricier than the rooms he and Gabe are staying in. One of the perks of being on the New York Times’ Best Seller list, he imagines.

“So,” Mikey murmurs into the deafening quiet of the room. The tension has coiled tangibly tight between them again, the few feet between them electric with potential. Mikey runs a hand through his hair, slicking back his dark locks. “I need to check in with my brother real quick or he’ll worry. It’s… uh, whatever. It’s part of my sobriety plan. Do you mind?”

Pete shakes his head and makes himself scarce, ducking into the bathroom to give him some privacy. He takes a quick piss, washes his hands and brushes his teeth with the complimentary hotel toothbrush to hopefully rinse out the taste of booze. A few half-empty blister packs of medication in Mikey’s toiletries bag catch his attention and he picks them up without thinking. It’s none of his business what Mikey takes, except… he recognizes the mood stabilizers as something he’s taken before.

Mikey’s just wrapping up the call on the balcony when he comes back out. “...of course I’ll be careful,” he mutters, frowning when he notices Pete. “Uh, gotta go. Seriously, Gee, you can tell me about it tomorrow. Night.”

“So,” Pete says when Mikey slips his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. The only light in the room comes from the bright city lights sprawled below them and the moon glowing overhead. Mikey looks serious and otherworldly and beautiful.

“So.” Mikey clears his throat, rubbing his palms together. “Do you have any limits or anything that—”

Mikey’s teeth catch hard on Pete’s bottom lip when he mashes their mouths together and it makes Pete moan, makes him putty in Mikey’s hands. Mikey takes advantage of his moment of weakness and whips him around until both of Pete’s arms are secured behind his back. Pete rubs his palms against the front of Mikey’s jeans, feeling him half-hard already. “Bedroom’s through there,” Mikey hisses into his ear. “Go.”

Once inside, Mikey manhandles him bodily onto all fours and yanks his pants halfway down his thighs until the waist catches around Pete’s knees. Then he’s crowding Pete against the headboard and spreading his cheeks apart, before bending lower to lick his hole.

Pete barely manages to brace one hand against the headboard and grip crisp, white hotel sheets with the other, before his own harsh, wet breaths fill the room. He squeezes his eyes shut, mouth open in a shocked grimace as he tries to get a hold of himself. Mikey isn’t shy or gentle or tentative, just presses close and eats his ass like he’s been starving for it.

Pete uses the headboard for leverage and pushes back tentatively, to Mikey’s obvious delight.

“Fuck yes,” Mikey mutters into his cleft, rubbing a thumb over his wet taint and pressing against his hole without breaching him. “You taste so fucking delicious.”

In Pete’s experience, ass tastes _not bad_ at the very best, but he’s too busy trying not to spontaneously combust to argue otherwise. He reaches down to get a hand on himself when a sudden, stinging slap to his backside convinces him otherwise. Oh _fuck_.

“I’ve got you,” Mikey promises, spitting into his hand before he wraps it around Pete’s dick in a loose grip. He pulls it back between Pete’s legs, putting his mouth back on his hole as he jerks him slowly. Pete arches his lower back to give him better access and bites down on his forearm, trying desperately to stifle how desperate he sounds. Mikey gets him sopping wet all over, sucks his balls into his mouth and runs his tongue in a torturous line from his asshole to the head of his cock.

Mikey lies flat on his back to suck him into his mouth and simultaneously breach him with a spit-slick finger and Pete’s brain _short circuits_. He reaches down to get his hands in Mikey’s hair, careful not to choke him as he humps helplessly into that delicious, tight, wet, heat. When Mikey’s finger finds his prostate, he makes an accidental fist in Mikey’s hair and almost blows his load at Mikey’s resulting moan around his dick.

He lets Mikey work him into a frenzy, takes everything Mikey gives him and only barely stops himself from begging for more. He lets Mikey swallow him down, lets him shove two fingers into him and then three, lets him coil him dangerously tight and then leave him hanging. He stays still while Mikey gathers lube and condoms, spreading his knees wide and arching his ass up when he hears the rip of foil.

There’s a startling moment, right before Mikey pushes in, where Pete acutely remembers he’s been here before. On all fours, spread wide and bent over, utterly defenseless, at the mercy of someone who could devour or destroy him at their whim. He’s been here before for countless guys who’ve walked out on him the next day, or the next week, or the next month. He should know better than to let himself be here again.

His words have better defenses than his body does; he’s never been impenetrable to anyone who wanted in.

Mikey leans over him and mouths at his ear, pushes the blunt head of his cock against Pete’s hole and whatever survival instincts Pete may have briefly entertained are immediately gone. He squeezes his eyes shut and bears down when Mikey breaches him, buries his face in the pillow and bites down hard as Mikey slides in. Mikey’s fingers dig into Pete’s hip once he’s bottomed out, and he lets out a shaky breath against Pete’s ear, a whispered, “Okay?”

It burns the way these things always do, feels intense and overpowering and dangerously overwhelming, but Pete can’t help himself. He jerks his hips backwards to get more, deeper, faster, harder. “Fuck me,” he begs, turning his head to feel Mikey’s lips brush against his cheek. ”Fuck me. Fucking _fuck_ me.”

Mikey leans closer, his mouth mashing against the side of Pete’s. His hips kick into motion, snapping hard and driving Pete forwards against the headboard. Pete grapples clumsily for leverage as he tries to give back as good as he’s getting. It’s messy, rough, reckless, and at this rate it’s going to be over before it even starts.

It’s hard enough to get him out of his head, and for a few beautiful moments everything in the world is just _this_ : his body being used and filled and fucked and his brain _finally_ shutting off. Everything in the world is Mikey’s dick pounding into his ass, Mikey’s breaths ragged in his ear, Mikey’s fingers pressing bruises into his hip. He buries his face in the pillow again, moaning unintelligible curses and prayers into the ether as Mikey overloads him.

Mikey has just reached between Pete’s legs when his movements slow suddenly, come confusingly to a halt. He winces when Mikey unexpectedly pulls out. “No,” he protests weakly, reaching behind himself for purchase. “Don’t stop, please.”

“Roll over,” Mikey says, pushing at Pete’s hip. Pete reluctantly lets him roll him onto his back, looking helplessly up at him as everything in his head comes crashing back into his focus. It strikes him with a brutal, resounding clarity that he’s already in way too deep. Mikey’s hand feels clammy on Pete’s stomach, heavy and soothing when it smoothes over Pete’s chest. He looks worried. “You’re not— Was that too hard?”

Pete swallows thickly, clears his throat. He props himself up on an elbow, feeling all kinds of fucked up. “What? No, it was good.”

Mikey glances down between their legs, to where Pete’s unexpectedly deflated dick lies at half-mast against his pubic hair, in stark contrast to Mikey’s hard length beside it. “Just checking,” Mikey says, sounding relieved. “I know some guys don’t—”

“It was good,” Pete insists breathlessly, reaching to pull Mikey close again. He feels greedy for doing it, like he’s already asking for more than Mikey’s going to let him have. “Good, too good, _out of body religious experience_ good.”

Mikey snorts out a laugh, brushing the back of his knuckles against Pete’s chin. Pete’s eyes fall closed when Mikey leans in to press his mouth against his own. His arms come around Mikey’s neck of their own volition, his legs hitching around Mikey’s waist to keep him close. He wants Mikey back inside his ass as a matter of priority, but instead Mikey just kisses him for the longest time, tongue and teeth drawing helpless moans from Pete’s mouth.

“Want to feel you to come around me,” Mikey mutters, ducking his head to suck Pete’s hardening cock back into his mouth. Pete buries his hands in Mikey’s hair and humps up into that wet heat, whimpering when Mikey’s fingers find their way back into his ass. He keens, letting Mikey suck him until he’s bucking shamelessly, gasping, “So close, so close, so fucking close, don’t—”

But Mikey pulls off of him and Pete wants to fucking _weep_ , until Mikey slides his dick back into his ass, grabs his hips and starts plowing into him in hard, relentless thrusts that have Pete seeing stars. He feels like he’s already started coming by the time Mikey’s hand wraps around his dick. His eyes roll back into his head and he bucks violently under Mikey, all measure of unattractive gasping noises spilling from his grimacing mouth. His toes curl, his back arches, his nails dig into Mikey’s neck and he fucks up against him, trying to milk every single last drop of pleasure from his orgasm.

By the time he’s stopped coming and has been reduced to a twitching, boneless, oversensitized mess, Mikey pulls out of him and strips off the condom. He leans over Pete and starts jerking himself, long, pale fingers wrapped firmly around his beautiful cock. Pete wants to suck it, needs to know what it feels like in his mouth, heavy and hard and bitter on his tongue, and he moves lower but Mikey keeps him pinned with a forearm across his collarbones.

“Want to come on you,” he says, claiming Pete’s mouth in a bruising kiss. Pete gives himself up to it, sucking wantonly on his tongue, gasping against his slick lips, begging Mikey to mess him up. When Mikey finally unloads on his belly, it’s with a soft whimper and a beautiful shudder that shakes through his entire body. “Fuck,” Mikey breathes, pressing his sweaty forehead against Pete’s as he comes down. Pete pulls him close, wraps his legs around Mikey’s thighs and holds him tight against himself. “So fucking good.”

Mikey moves a little, rearranging their limbs until they’re both comfortable, and then they lie there for long moments, dozing off and coming down. Mikey doesn’t move to clean him off or wipe him down, just leaves their come on his stomach and the lube between his legs like none of it matters.

Pete’s disturbed from his reverie when Mikey gets off the bed to dig through his suitcase in the corner of the room. Pete watches the lean lines of his naked body as he digs through clothes and books, wondering whether this is his cue to leave. He’s never been good at knowing when his welcome’s been overstayed.

The thought vanishes the instant Mikey returns to the bed with a copy of _The Pros and Cons of Breathing_ and a black Sharpie.

“You’re kidding me,” Pete says skeptically, sitting up to face him. He takes the book out of Mikey’s hands and studies it. What are the odds of Mikey having to have a well-worn copy of _Pros and Cons_ bearing the first cover it was ever published with? Pete doesn’t usually think much of his very modest fame, but this is some serious, next level starfucking sort of shit. “Why do you have this?”

“I told you my brother reads your work,” Mikey says, almost defensively, as he takes a seat beside Pete. “I was hoping you could sign it.”

Pete frowns at him, suddenly comprehending. He takes the book from Mikey and glances at the faded photo of his twenty-two year old self trying to pretend that he’s someone to be taken seriously. “That’s why you talked to me in that bathroom.”

Mikey shrugs. “I just wanted to say thanks, you know, for getting my brother through some shit.”

Pete flicks through the book. The pages are worn, discolored with coffee stains and paint-splattered fingerprints. There’s a cigarette burn on the top right of page twenty-three, beside the emboldened title of _Eleven Reasons to Make it Through the Night_. It’s clearly a book that’s meant something to Mikey’s brother, something he’s held on to when things have been hard. “Is he okay now?”

“Yeah,” Mikey says easily, a small smile on his lips. “He’s had his shit together for a while. Wife and kid, white picket fence, grown ass adult job, that sort of thing. I’ve been living in his guest room in for the last few months while I figure my own shit out.”

Pete considers the lemonade, the nightly check-ins, the blister packs, the worry in his friend’s face the other night at the bar. “Are you? Figuring your… I mean.”

Mikey shrugs. It surprises Pete that he doesn’t look away, that he just stays _present_ with him like none of this scares him. “Work in progress, I guess. Rock bottom’s a hard place to get back up from.”

Pete wonders whether some of the coffee stains on those pages are actually Mikey’s, but he’s not going to ask. “What do you want me to write?” he asks instead, taking the lid off of the Sharpie.

Mikey shrugs again, a little stiffly this time. “Whatever you want.”

It takes Pete a few moments to know what to write. He scribbles _Thanks for not letting the world kill you_ and puts the book on the nightstand before Mikey has a chance to read what he wrote.

“Thanks,” Mikey says quietly. There’s a long pause after that. Mikey looks around the room. Pete feels stupidly naked. He should go. Mikey’s probably already given him fifteen cues to leave that he hasn’t picked up on.

“So, I’m gonna go,” Pete says, before Mikey has a chance to make up some convenient story about having to get up early. It’s always easier to leave voluntarily than to be politely kicked out. “Get out of your hair.”

“Hey,” Mikey says, grabbing his arm to keep him from getting up. “We can watch something on the pay-per-view.”

Pete’s arm relaxes in Mikey’s grip. He nods cautiously. Mikey’s answering smile is just a small, understated thing, but… it’s nice.

They get through most of the snacks in the mini bar and about forty minutes’ worth of the original _Die Hard_ , entwined under blankets on the couch, before Pete finds himself on his knees with his mouth deliciously full.

“God, I love how you take dick,” Mikey murmurs reverently, stroking the bulge in Pete’s cheek with his thumb. “Like you were fucking made for it. Open up for me.”

Pete opens wide, tilts his chin up, sticks out his tongue, offering up his throat. Mikey pushes in slow, deep, eyes intent on Pete’s as Pete works to relax around him. Pete’s eyelids flutter shut when his nose presses against the coarse curls at the base of Mikey’s dick. Mikey’s hand on the back of his neck holds him there, gentle but firm, careful but insistent. His thumb brushes softly against Pete’s jaw, the slightest, sweetest caress. Pete almost can’t handle it.

“Open your eyes,” Mikey murmurs and Pete feels completely fucking defenseless when he does. Mikey’s bottom lip is caught between his uneven teeth again, but he doesn’t look nervous anymore. “Hands behind your back.”

Pete tentatively reaches back to rest his knuckles against his heels, his heart thudding violently in his chest. His lungs protest, his eyes water and his throat seizes up, but he holds on until the oxygen deprivation starts making him dangerously dizzy.

He has no choice but to let Mikey’s dick slip from his mouth when he eventually has to heave for breath. Mikey pulls his forehead against his bony hip, hand still firm on the back of Pete’s head. “So good,” he praises in a whisper, his fingertips moving minutely against the nape of Pete’s neck. “Breathe.”

Mikey waits until Pete’s breathing evenly again before he tips Pete’s head back once more. Pete obediently opens wide when Mikey pushes two careful fingers past his lips. Mikey’s thumb and ring finger press down on his chin, anchoring his hand as his index and middle fingers go past Pete’s tonsils. It takes every bit of focus Pete has not to panic or gag or overthink it. Instead he surges up, gets Mikey’s fingers deeper, encouraging Mikey to take his throat. 

Mikey smirks, pulling back to tap wet fingertips against Pete’s bottom lip. “You’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you?”

Pete knows it’s just dirty talk, power games, play, but he still feels utterly fucking helpless. He nods, his fingers interlocking tightly behind his lower back. His voice sounds breathy and unsteady when he asks, “What are you gonna do to me?”

Mikey considers him for a few seconds. “Fuck your face,” he says eventually. “Come on your pretty mouth or down your throat, I haven’t decided yet. Open up.”

Mikey feeds his dick back into Pete’s throat, giving him a few moments to adjust before he sets a slow, dragging pace with long, deep strokes. He keeps his hands in Pete’s short hair, pulling Pete back onto his cock. Pete’s eyes start watering almost immediately. It’s a struggle to keep them open, but he couldn’t look away from Mikey’s face if he tried. He’s beautiful like this; his brow furrowed in concentration, his mouth moving around breathless moans, his eyes not wavering from Pete’s.

Eventually Mikey’s thrusts get shorter, faster, more careless. Pete’s barely able to keep up, forcing himself to relax as Mikey uses his throat to get himself off. He starts swallowing around him and the pitch of Mikey’s moans change at the sensation. It’s a blur of movement after that and sooner than Pete would like, Mikey’s pulling out of his mouth and jerking himself off.

Pete greedily sticks his tongue out, wanting to taste Mikey’s come, begging for it with his eyes. He doesn’t think he can trust his voice.

Mikey comes in delicious, bitter stripes across Pete’s mouth and cheek. He drops immediately to his knees after, cleaning Pete off with wet, open-mouthed, gentle kisses across his browbone, his cheeks, his chin. When Mikey presses his mouth against Pete’s, it coincides with his hand wrapping around Pete’s cock. Pete ruts helplessly against him before coming in mere seconds. He slumps forward while he catches his breath, hiding his face against Mikey’s neck, trusting him to support his weight.

Mikey’s licking his own fingers clean and laughing a little when Pete comes back to himself. He brushes Pete’s hair back from his forehead, smiling fondly at him. “That was quick,” he says, more amused observation than actual teasing.

“Mmm,” Pete hums, too out of it to feel embarrassed. He fits his mouth against Mikey’s jaw and sucks lazily. “Having my throat fucked does it for me.”

“I like that,” Mikey murmurs, pressing his thumb over Pete’s adam’s apple and brushing their mouths together. “Come back to bed with me.” 

Mikey wraps him up like the littlest of spoons once they’re horizontal again, both hands wrapped firmly around Pete’s wrists. Pete’s blissfully out cold within minutes.

 

—

 

It’s still dark when he wakes up again. Mikey’s sitting at the foot of the bed, strapping up black leather boots. He’s still shirtless. Pete narrows in on where the skin of his lean belly folds over itself where he’s bent over at the waist. He wants to press his mouth to it again.

“Hit and run?” he mutters, trying to mask his disappointment. People have been walking out of Pete’s bedrooms for years, and yet watching someone’s back retreat after he’s spent all night drawing scratches across it still makes this silly, vulnerable thing inside of him _hurt._

But Mikey’s smiling when he turns, this sweet, easy thing that steals Pete’s breath. “Early flight back to New York.”

Of course he lives on the East Coast. Pete thinks about the time difference and the distance that all those miles put between him and Gabe. He pulls the covers closer, hugging them to his chest. “Who’re you flying with?” he asks, to keep the conversation going somewhere safe.

“Delta.” Mikey slips on a shirt and sits beside him. “Look me up if you're ever in town.”

"Or you could just give me your number."

Mikey snorts. "No point if you're not gonna use it."

Pete rubs his bicep, feeling sore and rubbed raw in more ways than one. "I might use it."

Mikey scoffs, looking at him like he doesn't buy it. “Sure,” he murmurs, turning away to pack more of his things. "I should go."

"Hey,” Pete says, stupidly anxious and vulnerable considering what he’s let Mikey do to him over the last few hours. “Give me your number."

Mikey comes close again and Pete instinctively wants to flatten against the mattress, expose his jugular and belly and cower like a submissive dog. "Are you gonna call me?" Mikey demands.

"Yes," Pete breathes, fisting the sheets tightly under his hands. "In a few days. Don't want to look too keen."

"Mm," Mikey says, sounding pleased as he looks down at Pete inches from throwing himself at him. He must look like he's gagging for it. He's already hard. His pulse is beating in his throat. "I don't like games. Just call."

He leans down to suck a bruise into Pete’s throat, slow and wet and so high on his throat that no collar will cover it. Pete fists his hands in Mikey’s hair and groans, any semblance of composure vanished. “I’ll call,” he promises.

Mikey takes the Sharpie from the nightstand and scribbles his digits on Pete’s forearm, messy but readable. Pete watches him snatch his copy of _The Pros and Cons of Breathing_ from the nightstand and tuck it into his backpack. "This was good," Mikey declares. "Brave, beautiful, important. But _War Paint_ was your best work so far. Or maybe _Novocaine_."

It makes Pete feel warm with embarrassment. “You’ve read my work?”

Mikey shrugs, shouldering his backpack and pulling the handle up on his suitcase. “Once or twice. I’ll see you around, Wentz.”

Pete stares at the door long after Mikey’s left, hugging his knees in stunned silence and pressing one palm against the bruise Mikey left on his neck. His pulse is still racing, hammering a staccato beat against the inside of his palm. He can feel every place Mikey’s been, where the skin is sore and swollen and soothed. By the time he reaches for his phone, Ashlee has sent a picture of herself with a tiny, sleeping baby on her naked chest. _Welcome to the world Jagger Snow_ , the accompanying text reads. She looks happy, exhausted, loved. Not alone.

He calls Gabe before he loses his nerve. He realizes belatedly that it’s somewhere in the late a.m., that Gabe’s probably asleep, but Gabe’s voice is in his ear almost immediately. “Pete,” he says gruffly. There’s a rustle of sheets and the sound of a bedside lamp being turned on. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“You’re right,” Pete confesses in a rush, pressing his forehead against his knees. “I’m stuck. I haven’t written anything for almost a year. I’ve barely fucked anyone since you. I’m drinking too much again. I don’t want to teach _Critically Acclaimed but Impenetrable Poetry 101_ at a community college, are you fucking kidding me? I want to write like I did when I was younger, before I got so fucking terrified I started taking the full truth and then pouring most of it out before committing it to the page.”

The smile is audible in Gabe’s voice, slow and sleepy and familiar. “I’ll tell Erin to make up the spare room, alright? We’ll get you some help. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Okay,” Pete repeats frantically. "Okay, okay, okay." He freezes when there’s a sudden knock on the door of the suite, glancing at the blinking red time on the alarm clock beside the bed. It’s just after five a.m., it must be someone from Mikey’s entourage collecting him for his flight. “Shit, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Still with him, huh?” Gabe teases, sounding mock outraged. “Slut.”

Pete rolls his eyes and hangs up, staying perfectly still as he tries to wait out the knocking. Eventually he has to bite the bullet, throw on some clothes and go tell whoever it is that Mikey’s probably waiting in reception.

When he opens the door though, Mikey’s on the other side of it. “Changed my flight,” he says simply, knuckles white around the strap of his backpack where it rests against his chest. “I’m gonna take you for breakfast.”

Something catches in Pete’s throat: words, relief or maybe reckless hope. “Okay,” he says, standing aside to let him in.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ["I Lied"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ThIf3iU5U) by Electric Century. Inspired, in part, by Richard Siken.  
> 
> 
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